


One for My Baby (And One More For the Road)

by newisalwaysbetter



Category: Timeless (TV 2016)
Genre: Canon Compliant, F/M, Feelings, Fluff, Flynn is a dad, Flynn is a mess, Late Night Conversations, Lucy needs help, cuteness, flynn bakes, mild whump
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-13
Updated: 2019-04-13
Packaged: 2020-01-12 12:24:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,547
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18446504
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/newisalwaysbetter/pseuds/newisalwaysbetter
Summary: An incident occurs on a mission that causes Lucy to lose/have to cut off her hair. Although she knows it’s stupid, she still doesn’t feel beautiful anymore. Flynn helps her understand that she still is.(S2/3 canon compliant garcy fluff. Flynn is not great at flirting.)





	One for My Baby (And One More For the Road)

**Author's Note:**

> Title is from the song by Frank Sinatra.
> 
> This is a prompt fill! If you like it, come send me fic requests over at to-hell-with-oblivion on tumblr :)

On the fourth day, he lures her out with muffins.

Age has necessarily sidelined Flynn from the most recent, most dangerous mission, and despite his best efforts, no amount of grumbling and stomping around has been able to sway Denise, who at five-foot-whatever can stare him down better than anyone alive. So, left to his own devices and more or less alone in the bunker, Flynn prepares for their return by making a new cup of the granola Jiya likes, and a fresh batch of the cookies Denise always takes home from the bunker. He’s tempted to put salt in the latter instead of sugar, purely out of spite, but he suspects Denise is feeding his cookies to her wife and children so he refrains for the sake of the innocent.

Everything is baking in the oven and Flynn is treating himself to a brief nap when the roar of the returning  _Lifeboat_  wakes him. In the five minutes it takes him to get out of bed (which is perfectly natural and he is  _very_  spry for his age, no matter  _what_ Rufus says), the others have scattered across the common area and Lucy has vanished into Jiya’s room with a  _slam_  of the door. The air in the bunker is tense, and no one is telling him anything, so with a heart heavy with worry, Flynn starts work on a new batch of the protein bars that Wyatt eats late at night. (He stress-bakes and Wyatt stress-eats, and they don’t talk about it, but it works.)

They’re all gone by the second day, which Flynn chooses to take as a good sign; it’s the times when the team stops eating that he has reason to be concerned.

By the third day, however, Flynn finds himself lingering in front of her door, one hand hovering over the steel, three seconds from knocking and undoubtedly also from one of the more awkward conversations of his life.

By the fourth day, he’s desperate, and that’s when he starts playing dirty.

Flynn is reading innocently in his room, and definitely not listening for the creaky hinges two doors down, when he hears all-too-familiar footsteps pad down the hallway to the kitchen. He also definitely has his own reasons for visiting the kitchen, independent of the woman to whom he’s trying to give her space, but he forgets them as soon as he sees her. 

In the past forty-eight hours, Flynn’s dark imagination has run wild, but Lucy looks…fine. 

He’s caught her with a mouthful of cinnamon-chocolate muffin, the special ones he’d noticed she likes and had innocently left a cooling batch of on the counter nearest the hall. Lucy’s cheeks bulge comically, and her eyes, though tired, are bright and alert with sudden surprise (but not with fear).

Lorena had always called him unobservant, and Flynn supposes she must be right, because it takes him a full minute to realize what’s wrong with Lucy’s hair.

Under a baseball cap he remembers from their prison visits, uneven tufts of dark hair poke out around her ears. It’s a look that screams  _improvised,_  but also frames the delicate lines of her face in a way that reminds Flynn of the Women’s March mission.

The two of them stand there, staring at each other, for nearly a full minute, frozen in place, while Flynn’s brain processes all this. (It’s possible that he’s staring.)

Then the whole startled image–and the idea that she’s been hiding because of her  _hair,_  as if that would ever affect what any of them think of her, and the bone-crushing relief that she’s all right all crash down on him at once, and Flynn can’t help it; he starts to laugh.

He quickly tries to to turn it into a cough, but Lucy blushes bright red and Flynn stifles it in his hand. Lucy is crushing the remaining half-muffin in one fist. Flynn swallows hard, his laugh suddenly drying up.

_He’s embarrassed her._

Lucy reaches up to touch her ragged hair, and her voice wobbles. “I didn’t think it looked  _that_  bad…”

“No, no.” Trying and failing to quash his smile, Flynn takes a tentative step forward. “Please, excuse me. I just think it’s a riot that  _this_  is why you were hiding.” His voice is warm. “Lucy. As though anyone in this bunker gives a hang what you look like?”

“I guess that’s…comforting.” Lucy isn’t smiling. She sets down the now-thoroughly crumpled muffin and walks past him, headed for the hall. “Goodnight, Flynn.”

“Lucy, wait.” Although he has no right to expect it, his heart still does a little jump when she pauses in the doorway. “I admit, I could have phrased that–better.”

She looks over her shoulder, but not at him. “Yeah, maybe.”

“Wait; here.” Flynn retrieves the muffin pan and offers it to her. “One for the road?”

Her hungry gaze rises from the proffered pan to rest guardedly on his face.

Aware that he’s sacrificing the last of his dignity, Flynn wiggles the pan in her face. “Come on, you know that you want it…”

* * *

“You know,” he says idly, when they’re sitting at the kitchen table, “of all of the speeches that I gave trying to convince you to join me, I never thought that offering you  _pastries_  would have been the one that worked.”

Across from him, Lucy helps herself to another muffin. “This was low, even for you. Using baked goods to manipulate us? Shameful. And for the record,” she adds vehemently, through a mouthful, “I was  _not_  hiding; I was…waiting…for all this to grow out.” She gestures dismissively to her hair.

Flynn sits across from her, peeling apples for a pie. He doesn’t look at her, and his voice is deceptively idle as he says, “Why?”

She looks down too. “I know it’s stupid. Cultural standards of beauty are fluid and subjective and always changing, and vanity’s the absolute  _last_  thing I need to worry about in here, but…” Lucy looks at the ceiling, and Flynn recognizes that look from his darkest times.  _Lord, give me strength._  “It just feels like another thing they  _took from me._ ” She rests her temples on her hands.

Flynn pushes his chair out with a creak, and stands. Lucy looks up at him, betraying dismay, but Flynn just touches her shoulder. “I’ll make you some tea.”

The tension flows out of her as the words do, and Flynn bustles busily around the kitchen. “Don’t get me wrong; it’s practical, too. It’ll be harder for me to go on missions, looking like this. I could wear a wig, I  _guess,_  but that only seems more dangerous…” She trails off on a sigh and runs a self-conscious hand over her hair. “Jiya cut this for me, but it’ll take at least a few months for it to grow out properly. I feel…shackled, to this time. Useless.” She looks up plaintively as Flynn approaches with a mug in each hand. “Or maybe I’m just being dramatic?”

“While I can’t speak to your  _beauty_  concerns,” Flynn says, setting a steaming mug down in front of her, “as someone who has also lost it all to Rittenhouse, there is one thing I know.” He settles into his chair, leaning forward to regard her frankly. “You’re not stupid for being sad. You’re not stupid for letting yourself _be_ sad. Denying those feelings will only destroy you, and it’s no use destroying yourself, Lucy.” Flynn reaches across the table and clinks his mug against hers. “If  _you_  hadn’t shown me that, I wouldn’t be here at all.” He gestures to the bunker around them, and adds, “With you.”

Lucy exhales on a shaky laugh. When she smiles across the table at him, her eyes are wet and sad. “I don’t know how I ever convinced you in the first place.” She shrugs helplessly. “Washington, D.C., McCarthy, meeting my grandfather…it all seems like a whole world away, now.”

“Mmm…not to me.” Flynn leans back, a distant, knowing look in his eyes. “Sure, we live in a concrete box now, and your hair is a bit different…” Lucy laughs. It sounds like a sob. “But not so much has changed, really.” 

For a moment, the silence strings out between them, and Flynn lifts a hand towards her, slow and sure. Lucy’s eyes flicker to it, but she doesn’t move away. “Not so much is lost…” Flynn’s callused fingertips ghost over the ragged cut of her hair. “As we believe.”

Lucy draws a shuddering breath, and lets her head fall so that Flynn’s fingers brush her cheek. He holds his hand there, and for a moment, she rests the weight of her head. 

Then she closes her eyes, and the tears spill down her cheeks, and Flynn thinks it’s a sin that he wants to live in this moment.

When she lifts her head, Lucy’s hair brushes Flynn’s hand. “You know,” he murmurs slowly, “with this new haircut, I hope your head is…lighter?”

“It is now.” Lucy wraps her hands around her warm mug with a sigh. “Would you just…stay here? With me? Just for a little while.”

“For as long as you want,” Flynn promises, and reaches for the muffin pan. “Pastry?”


End file.
